


Hurricane Blossom

by gadgetsandgizmos



Category: Riverdale (TV 2017)
Genre: Angst, F/F, F/M, M/M, Smut, Some Fluff, This is gonna be a rough ride, choni, lots of internal turmoil, prepare yourself for the feels, relationship drama, sweet angsty goodness
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2019-05-20
Updated: 2019-06-06
Packaged: 2020-03-08 19:46:43
Rating: Explicit
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 3
Words: 7,816
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/18901423
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/gadgetsandgizmos/pseuds/gadgetsandgizmos
Summary: Cheryl Blossom was, without a doubt, the reason why storms are always named after people. Antoinette Topaz loved her all the same. It was an abiding love, one that existed in quiet whispers of Sunday mornings as eyes met over a crossword puzzle and the latest gossip tabloids. It was a cup of tea after a jog that ended up with the jogger caught in an unexpected rainstorm, too quick and too eager to get home to shed saturated cotton from sticky flesh and shower away the remnants of Mother Nature’s ferocity. That cup of tea and those warm clothes that followed were solace. They were peace. They were home.--------OR, where Toni Topaz loves Cheryl Blossom more than anything and still can't seem to make their pieces fit.





	1. Cumulonimbus

**Author's Note:**

  * For [WhoLenny](https://archiveofourown.org/users/WhoLenny/gifts).



> Heeeeeey youuuuuu guuuuuys --
> 
> I PROMISE that I'll get to work on Aftershocks again. Seriously, I love that story. But this one hit me out of nowhere after reading 'Selfish' by WhoLenny (it's ABSOLUTE FUCKING BRILLIANCE, SO PLEASE READ IF YOU HAVEN'T ALREADY). I guess this sort of came to be because I know how it feels to love someone so much, but ultimately can't make sense of making the relationship work. I think a lot of us have been there. I also love Choni with all my heart and soul, but good gravy those two are a difficult couple and I honestly don't know that they would realistically be endgame. Maybe they will? Maybe not? Maybe it'll all go down in flames? Anyway, if you like heavy angst coupled with intense emotional feels that's sprinkled with a bit of fluff and smut of all varieties just to take you on a damn roller coaster ride, please keep reading. 
> 
> Feedback is such a beautiful thing, and it's so emotionally taxing and necessary for me to barf this out and bear my soul to you guys, so I would love to hear your thoughts.

Cheryl Blossom was, without a doubt, the reason why storms are always named after people. Antoinette Topaz loved her all the same. It was an abiding love, one that existed in quiet whispers of Sunday mornings as eyes met over a crossword puzzle and the latest gossip tabloids. It was a cup of tea after a jog that ended up with the jogger caught in an unexpected rainstorm, too quick and too eager to get home to shed saturated cotton from sticky flesh and shower away the remnants of Mother Nature’s ferocity. That cup of tea and those warm clothes that followed were solace. They were peace. They were home.  
  
Toni still remembers the first time she looked – and _really looked_ \- into Cheryl’s eyes. They were gold and green and bronze and hazel all at once. As a photographer, Toni appreciated the beauty of the golden hour, and looking into Cheryl’s eyes was like living there in that moment, suspended in time and space on reverent wings that fluttered like the cacophonous tune of her blissful heart whenever the redhead smiled at her. Ten years had gone by in a blink, and she still got butterflies. Everywhere the couple went, every time they made new friends or caught up with old ones, people were enamored with their romantic tale of high school sweethearts. They’d met Junior year of high school, right after South Side High had been closed down and its students funneled into uncharted territory. The North Siders – they all knew – hated them. Toni had always laughed it off as a bunch of affluent white kids being too dumb to ask questions and too meek to challenge their parents’ unfounded hatred for a bunch of ‘low life’ kids that were only doing what they needed to do to get by; being a Serpent was safety and security, it was a trusted bond for their only hope at getting anywhere because most of them didn’t have more than two nickels to rub together.

It was hilarious now when she thought back and reminisced with Cheryl about how a Blossom had been scooped up by a trailer park princess.

Two years of high school romance came to a head when they were both accepted to Highsmith College and got their first apartment just off campus. Toni finally understood what people talked about when they spoke of the “honeymoon phase” because they lived that. Highsmith was enough distance from Riverdale for them to explore each other as individuals that weren’t connected to their families, to the Poisons or the Serpents, or to anything but each other. What their first apartment lacked in space, it made up for in seclusion. Toni knew that sometimes Cheryl missed the elaborate grandeur of Thornhill and the antiquated, vintage chic of Thistlehouse but neither of those places had ever made Cheryl feel like she was truly welcome or at home. This apartment was theirs, and Toni could still feel her skin burning every time she thought about how she and the redhead had christened every single surface in that 900 square foot space before they took the time to unpack a single box. With the rush and bustle of college courses and their newly found interest in enjoying every moment of alone time that wasn’t interrupted by Cheryl’s mother or Serpent business or a new crisis with one or more of their classmates, it was a wonder they ever got unpacked at all.

But eventually, the two women transformed the tiny space into a haven for both of them.

Toni found herself enjoying the peace and tranquility that came from a long day waiting tables at a pub on campus when she walked through the front door and saw traces of Cheryl everywhere. The spicy clove and orange scent of Cheryl’s perfume hovered around the apartment like a gentle fog that made her fingertips tingle and Toni found that she didn’t even mind those moments where she tripped over a pair of expensive Jimmy Choos that had been left in the entryway. It was all worth it to witness a space where her camera could live next to Cheryl’s cherry red MacBook on the dining room table. Some days, Toni came home to rinse the grime from her fourth double shift in two weeks and she had the freedom to use the redhead’s expensive conditioner not because she needed the extra hair therapy, but because it made her feel closer to her girlfriend. She lived for those text messages that said _‘omw home baby, can’t wait to see u’_ or _‘are we cooking dinner together 2nite? i’ll get groceries if u send a list xx’_. They always had at least four too many emojis, most of which were incomprehensible to Toni but she learned to decipher them as if they were Cheryl’s secret code that was only meant for her. Toni had spent her entire life longing for some kind of relationship outside of the Serpents that made her feel like she had a purpose and like she had a home – now, she had that and even more than she could have dreamed.

College went by in a flash.

Cheryl’s dual degrees in business and applied arts/design allowed for her to get an internship at a prestigious interior design firm in the heart of New York City right out of the gate. Toni had been a bit slower to achieve her goals, but eventually she landed a series of interviews that paved the way for her to get a foot in the door at a fashion magazine – she started small, working for the photographers and helping set up the shoots, dealing with the models, and doing the grunt work. After a year of busting her ass, she finally made some headway and started getting regular features. Money was tight and uncomfortable for a short period, but they shed their skin and their tiny apartment for a bigger space – it was a bit of a fixer-upper, but Cheryl had been delighted at the prospect at transforming the Colonial from top to bottom and really making it theirs. Not to mention, the wear and tear of the property meant its acquisition was kinder to their budget, which was scant at best. They’d agreed upon using the majority of it for renovations, if they found the right property, and two years later, they were living in their dream home.

Throughout it all, there had been hardships. No couple was without their spats, and Cheryl and Toni were far from immune. Headstrong as both women were, when they fought the earth surely did tremble beneath them and bolts of lightning tore through the sky as they paced around their various living spaces, tossing insults at each other throughout time and space like variations on the same theme. It had been both easier and harder to fight in their first apartment – there wasn’t much room to escape, and so they’d play cat and mouse with one another. Cheryl would pace around the kitchen, using the small, galley-style space as a method of cornering Toni so she couldn’t collect her thoughts. Eventually, they’d make a break for the living room and duel circles around the couch. Toni would lead the intricate dance, noting every facial expression the Blossom carried because she was the more skilled arguer. The Serpent had never been much for emotional-based conflict; she had always gotten good at settling things with her fists or with her gang, but that was useless to her here. Even though Cheryl could drive her positively blind with rage, she vowed never to lay a hand on her beloved – sometimes upholding that promise tore holes in her that cut deep, and she hated herself for days afterwards.

The larger space updated not only their lives, but the format of their arguments. Now, Toni had room to escape and Cheryl would chase her down relentlessly. The redhead would beg her not to run and yell louder when she did. She would slam doors and toss herself onto the floor like a petulant child, grasping at the hem of Toni’s jacket one minute and then launching at her with a jaw set like stone in fury the next. Cheryl’s ability to go from begging to screaming – and not in the good way, not always – in the blink of an eye was nearly enough to make Toni question her own sanity, but wasn’t this passion the reason why she’d fallen for Cheryl in the first place? Every time her lover would nearly take a door off the hinges or throw a glass in her direction, she’d try to take a breath, close her eyes, and remember them in high school.

They’d be sitting in the library after lunch period, Cheryl perched on her lap as she surveyed everyone else around them, a Queen on her throne. Toni would draw a map of kisses down the center of the redhead’s back, gently making her presence known as the redhead babbled about one thing or another. She’d soak in every word as the warmth of Cheryl’s skin would transfer through the material of whatever piece of high-end clothing she’d opted to wear and melt onto her lips like warm summer rain. Sometimes, she’d remember when they used to take long weekend trips on her motorcycle. Toni would never let Cheryl know their destination and Cheryl insisted that Toni buy her a special helmet – red, of course. The redhead would shriek whenever the Serpent took a corner too fast, but Toni did it just to feel those slim digits tighten around her hips and sink into the worn leather of her jacket. Cheryl would always tell her afterward that she never felt safer than when they were together – nobody made her feel so safe and free as Toni did.  
  
In the present, she’d spit venom in Toni’s face like a cobra as she lamented how Toni never cared about _the stress of her job_ and _how could you possibly begin to understand the stress I’m under?_

She spoke to her like Toni had no worth at all, when once she made the Serpent feel like she was the glue that held Cheryl’s entire world together. And she’d cry. She’d cry fat tears that streaked mascara all the way down her face like a drug addict’s track marks and sometimes Toni would wonder if she didn’t choose the non-waterproof variety on purpose, just to be manipulative. After a while, even that became somewhat easy to tune out and stash away, even though Toni felt guilty about her ability to become so disconnected. In the moments when Cheryl launched headfirst and fearlessly into a long-winded emotional tirade that was meant to reduce her lover to rubble and ash, Toni would allow the redhead’s words to fade into the background as she heard her own thoughts louder than anything else.

She’d wonder:  _how did we let it get to this?_ _Where did we go wrong?_

She’d stay up late at night and try to pinpoint a moment – or even a series of moments – where things had foreshadowed this slow descent into shared madness. Despite her brilliant attention to detail and intense love for the woman who still slumbered beside her, no matter how bad the fights got, she couldn’t put her finger on it. Perhaps there hadn’t been a stumbling point or a decisive strike of failure. Perhaps their doom was inevitable. Their relationship had been so far-fetched, in her mind, to begin with. She used to wonder how Cheryl Blossom had ended up with her. Maybe she was right to question it all along.

But, despite her anger and her frustration and all her thoughts that she should just walk away, pack a bag and escape in the middle of the night, the acrid taste in her mouth always morphed from sour to sweet. Cheryl would murmur softly in her sleep or release a gentle snore through those kiss-bruised lips because they’d always spend hours making up even if neither woman was sorry. Her short, yet impeccably manicured nails would sink possessively into Toni’s hip, even while she was lost to the land of Nod, and the fire would burn hot all over again.

Cheryl needed her.

Cheryl wanted her.

Cheryl _loved_ her.

That was more than enough. Toni would cast softer eyes at the redheaded angel beside her – the one she cursed at and damn near hated just hours before – and feel her heart tremble like it had when she first laid eyes on Cheryl. It was a mixture of awe and reverence, of disbelief that such a splendid creature could exist. That such a marvelous creature could be sleeping next to her. Maybe that was the problem; Toni had never considered herself a prize, but Cheryl did. Or Cheryl said she did. Sometimes. She’d used to say it more frequently, and they still had their moments where they were blissful teenagers in love all over again. Those were the moments Toni lived for now – those moments, albeit fewer and further between – and the vivid memories of just how good they had been together, once upon a time.

And what if she left?

Where would she go?

Who would she be?

So much of who Antoinette Topaz was connected irrevocably to the woman beside her. They’d been young lovers. Cheryl was her first and only love. They’d spent a decade together, for better or worse. They had a home. They had a life. Toni remembered when she used to take Cheryl to Sweetwater River; it had been a long process because of all the memories associated that she knew kept her love on edge, but she had loved it there, once, so Toni would help her learn to love it again. Cheryl would drape herself over Toni’s torso, intertwine their fingers and trace idle pathways down the Serpent’s palm with her fingertips and she’d describe – in great detail – the Empire they would build together. She’d become an interior designer to all the most affluent clients, and Toni would be a world-class photographer. They’d be married in an elaborate ceremony with all sorts of A-list guests and their closest friends from Riverdale, a bridge between old and new.

\----------

 _“And we’ll be happy?” Toni asked, her eyes trailing down to the head of copper fire that spilled across her arm. Cheryl looked up at Toni, golden-bronze eyes alight with fire and determination and so much love it could make her heart stop right there and she’d die happy._  
  
_“We’ll certainly be happy, mon tresór,” Cheryl breathed. “I love you more than anything in this world, and I’ll love you until I draw my last breath. How could we be anything less than positively blissful?”_

_“You’re right,” Toni sighed. “I can’t wait to build a future with you.”_


	2. Daybreak

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Hello, dear readers. Here's the second chapter, AKA a glimpse into Cheryl's head during this tumultuous little situation our girls have found themselves in. For those of you who are reading and are willing to take a chance on something that isn't explicitly happy and lovely, I thank you from the bottom of my heart. Writing this has been a cathartic sort of fucked up joy because it's helping me deal with a lot of my own demons. If you're liking it, loving it, or just wanna say hey, I do love the feedback and would love to hear your thoughts.
> 
> WARNING: This chapter does contain mentions to some tougher subjects like domestic abuse, abuse in general, and attempted/thoughts of suicide. It's nothing explicit, but it's there. Tread carefully if you need to, okay?

Mornings were always difficult for Cheryl Blossom.

 

On some level, she knew she should feel blessed to be able to wake and greet the dawn and first light with a warm, curvy body next to hers. The smell of Toni’s bright, citrusy lotion and bath products was a delight, and the redhead luxuriated in it, in the familiarity and closeness. But most nights she never slept, at least not well, and this insomnia was always exacerbated and worsened by the arguments they had. Eventually, Toni would sleep and Cheryl would force herself to focus on the pink-haired woman’s breathing, deep and relaxed, and try to match the pattern. She’d stare up at the ceiling and feel her eyes burn with tears that wanted to fall, but she’d never been a silent crier, so Cheryl would do her best to fight them, to will them to stop until her head hurt and she became angry with herself because it felt so stupid to replay every aspect of their argument – whether it was big or small – over and over and over in her head like a broken record.

 

And she’d hate herself. She’d hate herself when the fights were her fault and when they weren’t her fault. She’d hate herself for being possessive or jealous or quick to anger. She’d hate herself for the petty things she’d say or do in the moment. She’d hate herself for making Toni such an angry person, because she knew it was her fault that the Serpent had changed in the decade they’d been together – they had been young lovers, blissful and peaceful and devoted to one another. Toni had been hardened by a life on the wrong side of the tracks and Cheryl had been vulnerable and starved for love, for the attention from someone who she believed could matter enough to make a difference. They both had their stumbling points, their tragic backstories, the skeletons in their respective closets, but they tempered one another. Their love had been enough to heal the hurt, and whenever Cheryl really hated herself, she’d try to remember all the nights when she’d snuck Toni into Thistlehouse because her grandfather had been drinking again. Some nights he’d stomp around their trailer, she knew, pissed off at the world but not far gone enough that Toni could still rein him in and put him to bed peacefully. He’d been her only ally other than the Serpents; he was her only living blood relative, at least as far as she knew, and there was a fondness because of that. A weakness, Cheryl knew, because she had pardoned a number of her family’s sins as well; she’d made excuses for them more often than she should, so she couldn’t ever put blame on Toni on the nights when she couldn’t convince her grandfather to go peacefully to bed and came to Cheryl with bruises on her wrists and the occasional black eye or busted lip instead.

 

Those nights, she had always tried her best to give Toni exactly what she needed. Whatever she needed.

 

Some nights, it was a welcoming embrace and softly spoken words of encouragement when her lover cried into red hair until it was sticking to her alabaster skin. Some nights, it was slow lovemaking where Cheryl breathed adoration over every freckle, every mark, every scar, every present injury and tried to put Toni back together with a grateful touch that was meant to make the Serpent feel like she wasn’t alone, that she’d never be alone again, and that they’d have their entire future to run from the misery of the past. Together.

 

Some nights, they’d watch bad movies and cuddle placidly. They’d talk, they’d laugh, and she would feel like she’d done some good to be able to make Toni Topaz belly laugh when she’d been so broken just hours before.

 

Cheryl had always wanted someone to think she was good.

 

Most days, she knew she was anything but: she was a Blossom, and there was a saccharine darkness that flooded their veins. It was a drug laced with power and entitlement, and while she had lived simply with Toni for a long time, while she had fought herself and her own nature, it was embedded deep like a cancer. Once, she had asked her mother to go see a psychiatrist. It was after Jason’s death, and she’d felt the prickling of insanity creeping up because she knew without a shadow of a doubt that she wouldn’t be able to cope without someone to listen to her agony and give her somewhere to go, something to do, anything to focus on life without him and feel like she stood a chance at survival. Penelope had laughed in her face and told her that Blossoms were a great many things, but they never admitted defeat and they never, ever showed weakness to commoners. She’d never allow Cheryl to talk to someone, not about their family’s secrets, not about the murder investigation, not about anything. And so, Cheryl had found herself on the ice of Sweetwater River in the middle of winter instead; suicide was dramatic, she knew, but it was a fitting end for a Blossom. She would carry their secrets – she would carry her own, endless pain – to a watery grave and nobody would ever speak of it. She’d be a whisper on the winds, a tale of tragedy that would haunt Riverdale, but at least she’d be remembered.

 

She’d considered suicide a second time when she’d been left to rot at the Sisters of Quiet Mercy; Cheryl had decided that once she reached a state of hopelessness where she convinced herself that nobody cared enough to come for her, she’d join Jason wherever he was. JJ had always loved her. He had always believed in her, and if nobody else did, why was she wasting her time on Earth? Why not start over and take a chance on a new life or an infinite one with her beloved twin brother? The days grew closer, and when she had heard her name being called during one of their mind-numbing ‘movie nights’, Cheryl had convinced herself she was crazy after all. It had been tossed around a few times, that she might be crazy. Her father loved to say it best, patronizing her and drilling into her head that she wasn’t of any value because JJ would inherit the family business. She only became worthy enough when her brother betrayed her father by impregnating Polly Cooper and plotting to leave his life as a Blossom behind.

 

If she was crazy, wasn’t she doing herself and the world a favor by ending it all? Nobody would love a crazy girl. Nobody would ever see that she had any potential for good because her horrific family’s reputation would follow her everywhere. And she couldn’t even cling to them – not that she’d want to – because they saw her as a perversion, as a scuff on their pedigree, as a worthless deviant.

 

So that’s how she started to see herself.

 

Or, at least, she had until Toni Topaz breathed life into her with a single kiss. The Serpent had broken her out of her prison and saved her life. She had risked it all for someone she barely knew. Someone she thought was sensational. It was a debt Cheryl knew she could never repay, but she vowed to try. She tried with small gestures, with tokens of her affection that everyone had lusted after for as long as she could remember, but she’d never given away to anyone. She tried with big gestures, like helping Toni get accepted to college at a prestigious university so she could escape the Southside and her grandfather for good. Cheryl had done everything in her power to build a life for them, a happy one, to build them a home.

 

But now, she’d look into Toni’s eyes from time to time and see regret pooling in orbs of melted chocolate. Cheryl would see unmistakable melancholy and discontent; she had to live with the reality that it was because of her.

 

Cheryl had put that pain and suffering there.

 

Sometimes, Cheryl would wonder how they’d manage to lay waste to each other and live in scattered bits of heart-shaped wreckage. It was love – it was so much love – that it became something dangerous as well; it was possession and desire that bordered on obsession because maybe Cheryl Blossom hadn’t ever really learned how to let someone in and let someone love her. Maybe in order to let someone love her completely, she had to own them, too. It had taken years of therapy to escape her family, and she had; they were the ghosts of her past, and she honored that because it was a testament to just how far she’d come.

 

But the mornings were cruel and had a way of bathing the world in pure, clean light that exposed everything. Cheryl saw the stains from Toni’s mascara that told her she wasn’t the only one who had been crying; her love hadn’t been as successful at fighting her tears, but her crying hadn’t been audible enough to notice. Toni was an angel when she slept, but Cheryl saw the scratches on the Serpent’s impeccably tanned skin that told her Toni had been anxiously scraping herself nearly raw again. Likewise, the photographer’s hands were chewed to stubs, broken nails in desperate need of a manicure. There were visible bags under her eyes even when she slumbered. Her youthful face was gaunt these days and Cheryl knew she didn’t take very good care of herself when they were fighting so often.

 

Because she didn’t come home.

 

Sometimes, Toni stayed gone for days, and Cheryl would always wonder where she’d go and who she’d see. Where she slept, and if she slept alone. The second Toni was out the door, her phone was off. Occasionally she left in such a hurry that she forgot it altogether, and Cheryl would simmer in a stew of rage because it was reckless; she didn’t have to answer the redhead’s calls – which were excessive, she knew – but she’d also never be able to tell Cheryl she was safe and not dead in a ditch somewhere, either. Cheryl would just have to play the waiting game and pray she’d come home. She’d promise that when she did, she’d apologize and promise to do better, she’d work harder on their problems and her needy personality that required Toni go above and beyond to prove her devotion while simultaneously walking on eggshells just in case she’d had a bad day.

 

But as soon as Toni came in the front door, it was World War III all over again.

 

Cheryl would scream at her and pound fists into her leather jacket and Toni would roll her eyes and go into the bedroom, leaving her in a heap on the floor.

 

She barely even had the strength to fight back anymore.

 

One day, Cheryl knew she’d leave and never come back.

 

And she wouldn’t be able to blame her family, either, because these weren’t their problems. They hadn’t done this to her.

 

They had done this to themselves, and they’d done it to each other.

 

Love could be just as beautiful as it could be destructive. It was a true force of nature that swept everything up in its path without warning and they were caught in it, for better or worse. They had been on both sides of the same coin because when it was good, it was so good she felt like she could combust with the sheer radiating joy of it all because nobody knew her like Toni Topaz did. When it was bad, it was catastrophic; both women could damn near bring themselves to tear the entire world down around them both and reduce everything they’d built to ash.

 

Cheryl turned on her side and felt a fresh set of tears prick at her sleep-deprived, gritty eyes when she focused on a patch of the bedroom wall that was a slightly different color than the rest of the wall; they had tried to find a perfect match for the paint and found none existed, so they had to make do with what the clerk offered instead. It was small, almost imperceptible, but her keen notice never skipped a detail. She kept meaning to cover it with a picture or a shelf or something so she wouldn’t have to stare at it anymore and remember one night when Toni had been so enraged at her that she’d punched a hole in the drywall, just narrowly missing Cheryl’s head.

 

It had ended the argument and Toni had patched the wall the next day. They’d never spoken of it since, but it was irrefutable proof that love wasn’t always enough to save two broken people who were just trying their best to navigate a difficult world that seldom housed enough room for two people who were once hopelessly in love to stay that way forever, like they’d always wanted. When she actually slept, that’s all she dreamt of: a happy future with Toni.

 

Most days, when she slept, Cheryl didn’t want to wake up.

 

Mornings were hard.

 

“Cheryl?”

 

A raspy voice interrupted her inner monologue and Cheryl turned on her side to see Toni staring at her, eyes bleary and face clean as the morning.

 

“Yes, _mon amour_?”

 

“Are we okay?”

 

Somehow, they always came back to this question where they both knew they weren’t but couldn’t bring themselves to be truthful with each other.

 

Cheryl smiled and reached out to stroke a finger down the slope of her lover’s nose, tracing a gentle path down to her lips and snaking fingers around the curve of her jawline, using that leverage to pull the Serpent in for a sweet, slow kiss.

 

“One little argument isn’t enough to break us, TT,” Cheryl purred once the kiss broke. “We’re stronger than that, you know.”

 

It was the understatement of the century.

 

“Good,” Toni breathed. “Because I don’t know what I’d do without you.”

 

“You won’t ever have to know such a dreadful thing,” Cheryl replied, and every cement block that had been crushing her into the bed lifted when Toni snuggled closer into her side. “There’s nowhere else I’d rather be in the entire world than right here with you. I love you.”

 

“I’ll always love you, Cher.”

 

The sentiment was beautiful, earnest and it strengthened Cheryl every time such glorious words fell from her beloved’s lips.

 

Maybe she was being too hard on herself.

 

Maybe they were fine, after all.


	3. Thunderous Respite

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Make-up smut, anyone?
> 
> Yeah, this is completely porn. 
> 
> Enjoy, pervs. ;)

Mornings after were usually overly soft, like the first rays of sunshine that peeked through gauzy, billowing curtains that barely did their job to disguise the intensity of daybreak. Cheryl’s heart was full of uncertainty, but also filled with love for the pink-haired woman beside her who was slowly stirring to greet the day. When they didn’t have plans, it was easy enough to snooze the alarm – both of their alarms – and bask for a little while longer. Sometimes, they’d cuddle. Other times, cuddling would turn heated when hands and mouths began a familiar expedition across the body of their lover. Usually, it culminated in some loose form of plans for the day – shared plans – because they always liked to take comfort in not only each other, but in the aspects of their relationship that had always been good and true.

 

When things were good, they were incredible, and both Cheryl and Toni liked to remember each good moment by creating new ones, good memories that were closer to them than further away like high school and college were. Sometimes, both women wondered if it wasn’t their way of messing things up further, prolonging the inevitable, but that was too much for their hopeless hearts to bear.

 

Toni sat up, causing the duvet cover to spill around her waist as she stretched her arms upright to stretch. Her tank top moved up caramel skin, exposing softly toned muscles that Cheryl loved tracing with her tongue and digging blunt fingernails into at every opportunity.

 

“We have to stop hitting snooze,” the Serpent sighed, her voice a whiskey-soaked purr that set Cheryl’s insides on fire.

 

“I don’t have any better plans, lover. Do you?”

 

“Not really.”

 

The redhead sat up and settled her hands over Toni’s hips, long fingers splaying out to rest on her lover’s lower stomach where the tank top didn’t cover. She scratched the skin lightly with her fingernails and sighed as her lips – free from her signature shade – left open-mouthed kisses in a downward trail that started at the base of Toni’s neck, down her shoulder-blades, then toward the center of her back over the ribbed cotton material.

 

“Cheryl---”

 

Toni’s resounding groan was equal parts protest and consenting desire. Cheryl continued anyway. They did respect each other enough, even at their worst, to understand a ‘no’ when one was presenting. But since the redhead had heard no such genuine protest, she felt empowered to continue. Further convinced when Toni’s hips rocked forward, shifting in a serpentine, circular motion down into the mattress and up into the air, Cheryl removed one hand and placed it under her lover’s long locks, moving Toni’s thick mane out of the way so it no longer obstructed her delicate nape. Cheryl pressed her breasts into Toni’s back, knowing the other woman could feel her erect nipples pushing through the silk slip she wore to bed and the immense heat that was starting to burn between them. Pearly white teeth sank into the nape of Toni’s neck more gently than usual, but with enough pressure to still make their presence known and Toni gasped.

 

“I want you,” Cheryl whispered confidently, a rumbling purr against Toni’s skin as she soothed the spot that was previously bitten with her tongue, then fluttered lips over to sear her amorous advances into her partner’s flesh.

 

Toni’s heart soared at the words that never, ever failed to make her feel like she was anywhere else but on Cloud 9. This woman was an angel and a devil all wrapped up into one, picture perfect Goddess of feminine beauty. Their love was clandestine, and Toni was starved to drink deep at the fountain of their passion once more. Her body ached with the thirst, her throat felt dry as a desert, and Cheryl was offering up the elixir so sweetly, so eagerly, that even if she had her logical reasons to hesitate, she couldn’t bring herself to allow them to carry any weight and bleed into the present moment.

 

Later.

 

They could always talk later.

 

“Do you _want_ me, Bombshell, or do you want me to _take_ you?”

 

Toni knew the sound of Cheryl’s eyes rolling back into her head when she groaned softly, her lips quivering against their purchase on Toni’s neck where she had been working to diligently suck a new mark into existence before her focus was shattered. Fingertips trembled against her, and Toni smiled and pushed back into Cheryl, leaning her head back a little to give her lover more room to continue her work as two more marks bloomed against the Serpent’s skin.

 

Cheryl considered the night before, remembering the way Toni’s eyes had flashed with rage and fury because of her antics, again. She loved that intensity as much as she hated it, because for all the danger involved in getting her girlfriend’s temper up, at least some passion was better than none. The fact that she could make Toni _feel_ like that was almost as good as when the Serpent was screaming her name.

 

She’d always known there was a fine line between love and hate. Back in high school, she’d soaked up the fear from her classmates and basked in it because if she couldn’t make them _love_ her, she wanted them to fear her instead. If she couldn’t have _love_ , she’d settle for hate. It was still something that left marks on people’s souls, still a mark she could leave and know she’d affected someone permanently in some capacity. And damn, did she love to leave a lasting impression.

 

“Take me, _mon amour_ ,” Cheryl breathed. “Have me. I’m yours.”

 

Toni’s resounding growl caused Cheryl to ruin her panties immediately and seconds later, the redhead was pinned on her back, wrists encircled by strong hands intent to keep her still and compliant. Cheryl bucked her hips upward, trying to seek Toni for some – for _any_ kind of contact – and whimpered when she realized that Toni was doing her best to keep just out of reach, denying Cheryl what she wanted most until she was putty in the Serpent’s hands.

 

“Stop fucking _wiggling_ like that,” Toni growled, words sharp as they cascaded and morphed into a whisper that was damn near threatening. Cheryl flushed and sighed, completely at her lover’s mercy and happy for it. “You’re mine? Start acting like it. You wanna _feel_ something, Cher? You’ll feel something, all right.”

 

Oh, and she was still angry. Cheryl keened. This was too delicious, too unbearably good not to poke a prod just a little more, just like she did in their arguments. Toni leaned over the side of the bed, digging through the clothes she’d haphazardly discarded the night before. Cheryl was bereft; she tried moving forward to see what her girlfriend was doing, what she was looking for while every nerve ending in her body fired on all cylinders like each and every one was raw, exposed, utterly in tune with Toni Topaz and every movement of that sinful frame.

 

“What did I say, Cheryl?”

 

And there was still that anger, that heat, but it sizzled with a light, playful lilt that only added to the depths of Cheryl’s desire. Even more so, she realized, when Toni emerged with her belt. Toni took absolutely no time before she looped it around Cheryl’s wrists and through the bedframe, making an intricate, make-shift tether that stung a little when she tightened it abruptly with a soft whoosh of the leather working through metal before it was clasped and she was trapped.

 

“No wiggling,” Cheryl replied, her long lashes fluttering coquettishly as she looked up at her lover.

 

“Exactly right.”

 

“Am I a bad girl, Toni?”

 

Toni’s eyes slowly closed and opened, and her jaw went slack. The sheer look of want on the Serpent’s face didn’t escape Cheryl’s keen notice, and she’d die a thousand deaths just to see Toni look at her like that over and over. She’d endure everything. She’d do _anything_ because she knew nobody else had ever looked at her that way, and nobody else ever would.

 

“Yes,” she hissed, then crawled up the redhead’s body, kissing each wrist where it was bound by her leather belt before moving lower, attacking Cheryl’s neck with a purpose. Teeth sank in hard, leaving a mark that seemed to bruise instantly while her hands moved everywhere, all at once.

 

Cheryl’s breasts were cupped harshly through her silk slip, the friction making her gasp and whimper before Toni hiked the slip up to Cheryl’s hips, exposing her panty-clad, soaked lower half while the redhead squirmed because every wisp of air was torture on her swollen, overheated core.

 

“I’m half tempted to tear this off of you, but I don’t make a habit of destroying pretty things,” Toni mused. Cheryl sighed as her painfully erect nipples were teased gently through the fabric and pinched, then rolled between Toni’s thumb and index finger. “Usually.”

 

A pause settled between them, and Cheryl gulped. Toni trailed blunt nails up Cheryl’s thighs, and the redhead desperately wanted to arch into the contact, but she didn’t dare. When Toni was like this, the pink-haired woman was damn near unpredictable. Cheryl knew her lover would never really hurt her – she trusted that, at least she did when they weren’t having a screaming match. Even so, the fire that fueled Toni at that particular moment was encouraged and ignited by the swell of residual emotion that she knew morning light couldn’t fully wash away.

 

When they made up like this, it was always a dichotomous mixture of making up and getting out their latent, pent-up frustrations at each other. It was their way of having a shared ‘last word’ so they could make their best attempt at moving on toward genuine reconciliation. Sometimes it actually worked. Other times, they were just happy to be along for the ride and lose themselves in each other for a little while – or a long while – to get them through another day.

 

“Is that what you want, TT? To destroy me? Ruin me?”

 

Toni’s hands flexed and Cheryl could feel fingertips digging into her sides when Toni paused, thumbs hooked into the waistband of the redhead’s panties. Forearms flexed sensually and in lieu of a response, Toni tore Cheryl’s panties completely off her body, tossing the shredded material somewhere in the corner of their bedroom to be dealt with later. Much later.

 

“ _Fuck_ ,” Cheryl gasped, her insides pulsing around nothing because she longed to be full. She ached for it. She ached for whatever Toni had in store and was desperate enough to give her lover absolutely anything, even if it meant she burned to ash in the process.

 

“I’ve already ruined you, and you know it.”

 

There was little to no preamble when Toni’s thumb found Cheryl’s swollen clit and began to rub slow circles, the pressure increasing with each rotation, and the redhead couldn’t keep still even if her life depended on it. Toni didn’t chastise her, didn’t tell her to stop, and instead worked with Cheryl’s movements to keep her touch lighter and distant depending on just how much Cheryl sought out her touch. It was an intricate game of cat and mouse, and it was driving Cheryl insane. Her head swum like she was underwater, drowning in the depths of their passion and need. Each little whimper that fell from Cheryl’s lips was music to Toni’s ears, and she quickened her pace, but not the pressure until her lover begged so sweetly for more.

 

“Please,  _please, pleasepleaseplease…”_

 

“Hmm?” Toni murmured into Cheryl’s skin before she nibbled on the alabaster skin beneath her, making her mark on each collar bone.

 

“Toni,  _fuck_ , I need---”

 

“Yeah? Use those pretty words you know I like. Beg for me like a good girl.”

 

“I thought I was a bad girl?”

 

Even in the throes of pleasure, Cheryl Blossom could be a brat. She could tease with the best of them, to her own detriment.

 

“I don’t give a fuck what you are, you’re mine. That’s all that matters. You’re mine, and you’ll always be mine,” Toni growled.

 

Cheryl was just about to beg and give Toni what she wanted when she felt two fingers sink deep into her, curling and seeking out the spot that Toni knew like the back of her hand. Apparently, her impatience and need to possess something that had always been hers, _again and again_ , won out.

 

Toni filled her and Cheryl knew victory seldom tasted so sweet.

 

This was why she always had her heart set on winning.

 

It just felt so good, so gratifying, and she was drunk on it.

 

Toni’s brow furrowed and she concentrated on the blistering pace of her fingers slamming into Cheryl while her thumb slipped through soaked folds to try to keep up its previous ministrations on Cheryl’s clit. Each stroke, she curled up and barely allowed herself to exit for a millisecond before she slammed in to the hilt, forcing Cheryl to take her fingers as deep as they could possibly go. It was a bruising rhythm, but it was what she needed – what they _both_ needed – which was solidified by the fact that Toni watched her vixen’s face contort into deep, undeniable pleasure. Her arms shook and hands flexed at the air while she bucked and keened against her restraints, though Toni knew Cheryl had no real desire to be free. Her head rolled on the pillow, those delicious, full lips fell open in a perfect ‘o’ over and over as she let loose moans that were absolute filth.

 

The quickened pulse around her fingers told her Cheryl was close, but she was nowhere near finished. Without slowing her relentless pace, Toni dropped to her knees and situated herself between her lover’s trembling thighs. She took the redhead’s swollen clit between her full lips and sucked – hard – giving the now screaming woman beneath her a light touch of her teeth before she bit hard on a hipbone and curled her fingers again.

 

Toni added a third finger when Cheryl’s thighs spread wider, lewdly, and her tongue worked furiously over the redhead’s clit, alternating between broad, flat strokes and even suction.

 

She loved Cheryl Blossom to madness.

 

She loved her to Hell and back.

 

And Cheryl felt the same, Toni knew she did, because she apologized with her body as it took everything Toni needed to give.

 

“ _Oh_ , Toni… I’m gonna—”

 

A strangled cry left Cheryl’s perfect mouth, and Toni didn’t even need to give her permission. Cheryl couldn’t help herself. She was always so radiant, so self-serving, so completely _hers_ , and Toni just wanted to experience and witness the beauty of Cheryl falling apart because of her.

 

Each and every time, it was so good.

 

It was too good.

 

And she’d never have enough.

 

Toni felt Cheryl’s wetness gush onto her greedy fingers, and she didn’t stop there. She moved back up the redhead’s body and pushed once, then twice more, so deep that she felt like she could completely disappear and never resurface. Cheryl whined, a high-pitched noise in the back of her throat as her eyes rolled back in her head and her entire body shook like she was having a seizure. Her toes curled, the muscles in her arms trembled and flexed, and her eyes locked onto Toni.

 

“Do it again for me, baby,” Toni whispered, and it was in stark opposition to the pounding she was giving her lover.

 

They were such opposites in many ways.

 

“More,” Cheryl begged. Toni sped up her thrusts until her forearm ached from exertion and still, she powered through. She loved when Cheryl was greedy, when she was so lost in their coupling that her mind was blank from everything else that existed outside of their bed. Cheryl wrapped her legs around Toni’s hips and pulled, strong thighs quivering as she started moving against the Serpent, and Toni wondered if now was a good time to punish her for deliberately disobeying, but then realized she really didn’t care.

 

Because Cheryl Blossom was a Goddess and she considered herself lucky to be able to worship at her altar and see her so stripped bare of her defenses, washed clean of who she was outside of these precious moments when she belonged solely to Toni. Where nothing else mattered.

 

When they could pretend, just a little longer, that nothing had changed.

 

Cheryl screamed her name when she reached her peak the second time and Toni slowed once every last pulse of the redhead’s pussy ceased around her questing digits. Toni rubbed her lover’s wrists tenderly when she undid the belt and Cheryl grabbed Toni’s fingers, taking her time to ensure each one was clean of her juices. The Serpent collapsed on top of Cheryl and her head fell into the crook of the redhead’s neck, breathing her in desperately as Cheryl stroked her back.

 

“I love you,” she swore.

 

“I’m sorry,” Cheryl said.

 

Their eyes met and Cheryl cupped Toni’s jaw, bringing her in for a slow, sensual kiss.

 

“Good thing we didn’t have plans today,” Toni chuckled against her lover’s full lips when the kiss broke and they parted.

 

“Oh, but we do have plans,” Cheryl said, a smirk raising the corner of her mouth. Toni arched an eyebrow, suddenly confused. “I’m nowhere near done with you, so we’re not leaving this bed.”


End file.
